Bulgaria's industrial production has dropped by 15%-20% year-on-year since the global economic crisis affected the country. Photo by BGNES
The decline of Bulgaria's industrial production has started to slow down in August 2009 year-on-year.
Compared to the levels of August 2008, Bulgaria’s industrial output shrank by 15,9% in August 2009, National Statistical Institute data shows.
Over the previous three months, the industrial production dropped by between 18-22% every single month year-on-year. This comes as a confirmation of the forecasts of business analysts that Bulgaria’s economic activities has reached the bottom, and there will be no further declines of business deals and production orders.
Compared to July 2009, however, Bulgaria’s industrial output in August declined by 7,8%, after in June and July it actually grew on a monthly basis by 7,5% and 1,9% respectively. This is seen as normal, since August is traditionally very weak for industrial production.
Bulgaria’s industrial production index stands at 94,4 percentage points, compared to the base level of 100 in 2005.
Preliminary data shows that Bulgaria’s extracting industry dropped by 17,7% in August 2009 year-on-year, whereas the processing industry declined by 18,8%.
Compared to the July 2009, the extracting industry dropped by 5% in August, and the processing industry – by 9,1%.
Bulgaria’s Finance Ministry expects that the fourth quarter of 2009 will be worse than the third quarter, and that this is when the negative effects of the global economic crisis will reach their peak.